


Take My Hand (Take My Whole Life)

by thelittlegreennotebook



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlegreennotebook/pseuds/thelittlegreennotebook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, everything looks exactly the way it’s supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take My Hand (Take My Whole Life)

**Author's Note:**

> Just some 4x16 spec to help survive the hiatus. Many, many thanks go to hannasus for patiently helping me scrape away the rust. Title credit goes to Ingrid Michaelson's "Can't Help Falling in Love." I hope you enjoy!

The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, everything looks exactly the way it’s supposed to.

She’s dressed in a white, gorgeous dress that tapers into a perfect train and looks as if it had been made for the sole purpose of being worn by Felicity Smoak. Her hair is pinned up in an elaborate up-do that Thea had put an unnecessary time and effort into, and her veil is attached securely to her head, the material hanging gracefully down her back and tickling her shoulder blades. Her nails are freshly painted, her make-up impeccable. A delicate silver bracelet loops around her wrist, borrowed from her mother, and a crystalline blue pendant hangs in the hollow of her throat, given to her by Oliver somewhere between New York and Boston what seems like a lifetime ago.

The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, everything _looks_ the way it’s supposed to. No one would know that Felicity sat in the bridal suite staring at her dress for ten minutes before Laurel gently suggested that she start getting ready. No one would know that it took her three tries to apply her mascara before Thea graciously took the wand out of her shaking hand. No one would know that the only thing keeping her from dashing into one of her escape routes — and there _were_ escape routes, plans and backup plans ordered A to Z — was the steady press of Lyla’s comforting hand against her shoulder.

The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, her bridal party is composed of three, and all of them are looking at her with a mixture of pity or guilt written across their faces.

“Felicity, I’m —”

She raises a hand to Lyla. “Don’t,” she says softly. “Please don’t apologize for this. You had no way of knowing that Carrie would do something like this.”

“Yes, but you and Oliver —”

“Lyla,” Felicity interrupts, if only because she doesn’t want to hear the way that sentence is going to end. “This isn’t your fault. Oliver and I will be fine.”

Just then, there’s a shattering noise across the hall, the tinkling spray of glass shards muffled by the intervening walls, and all four women rush to the door. Felicity lags a few feet behind on account of the heels she never had the motivation to break in after everything that happened between her and Oliver.

Lyla’s hand is already on her firearm, her other arm reaching back to keep Felicity away from the commotion as she slowly pushes the door to the bridal suite open.

Almost immediately, Dig appears in the doorway directly across from theirs.

“Nothing to worry about,” he says. “Crystal vase took a tumble.”

But even from across the hall, Felicity can see the tension sitting around his eyes. It’s the same strained look he used to give her when she would get back to the lair after a date with Ray and find a newly-ordered training dummy sitting broken and battered against a wall.

Behind him, Felicity catches a glimpse of Oliver pacing past before John steps forward and swings the door so that only a sliver of light shines through from behind him.

“How’re the preparations going?” Dig asks, walking towards them across the wide hallway. “Everything all right?”

There’s really no good way to answer that — could anything ever be remotely _all right_ about this situation? — and Felicity’s eyes are still fixated on where she can see flashes of Oliver stalking across the length of his room.

“Let me talk to him,” she says in lieu of a response, and four incredulous faces turn to her.

“What?” she asks defensively, tearing her eyes away from the door. “We talk.” John huffs out a breath halfway between amused and frustrated, and she glares. “We talk _sometimes_.”

“Silently?” Thea wonders, and Felicity jabs her with an elbow.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Lyla says.

“Well, then it would fit in nicely with this entire day.”

“Isn’t this against some sort of tradition?” John asks, a last-ditch attempt at keeping this interaction at bay.

Maybe their hearts are in the right place — god knows no one has had to deal with the aftermath of her and Oliver’s break up quite like the team has — but Felicity feels annoyance rush to the forefront of all her emotions. Because _really?_ _Tradition?_

“Look,” she says, “I’m about to bait a kidnapping, murdering criminal by getting fake-married to my ex-fiancé. We left tradition behind so many miles ago it might have actually transcended time and space. We would need to call Barry to find it at this point.”

Laurel and Thea have their gazes fixed on the floor, but Dig and Lyla make eye contact so filled with mutual sympathy Felicity can’t bear to look at them. Seconds later, Lyla touches John’s wrist and guides him out of the way.

“Thank you,” Felicity says, heading determinedly for the door.

The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, she doesn’t talk him into it, and he doesn’t need her to try. They made this decision only to delude themselves into believing it was a decision at all, and neither of them is in the business of convincing each other otherwise.

Instead, they sit on the small love seat in the groom’s quarters with the warm, glowing sunshine streaming through the ornate windows and blanketing their backs. They’re not bickering or stonily dodging each other’s gazes or deliberately avoiding each other’s touch. Instead, they’re curled closer together than they’ve been in weeks, hips pressed together, fingers intertwined, and her head resting on his shoulder.

They’re stuck in the same place they’ve been for what seems like forever now — together but not together, connected and disconnected — the history and emotion tangled up so far as to be indistinguishable. And still, Felicity has never wished for anything more than she wishes for this moment to last forever. She would gladly stay in this in-between with Oliver if it means they don’t have to go forward with what inevitably happens once they step outside of this room.

“I wish it could be different,” she whispers, an admission and an assurance all in one. There is not a single world in which she would want this.

“Yeah,” he says. The image of her hand in his blurs until there is no telling where she ends and he begins. When he turns to press his lips to the crown of her head, her eyes slip closed. “Me, too.”

The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, the room is set for a hundred and fifty people and filled only by six, two of them in formalwear and all of them armed.

“Please, take it?” Oliver asked her not five minutes ago, standing outside the doors to where the ceremony would take place. The urgency in his blue eyes took her completely off guard as he pressed a small switchblade into her hand, as if she’d forgotten just how much he cares — just how desperate he is to protect her.

“What? No,” Felicity said, stepping back. “If Cutter really wants to kill me, what could that tiny little thing possibly do to stop her?”

“Give us peace of mind,” Dig said from behind Oliver, whose grip pressed into hers more insistently.

“And you, what — have a gun hidden in the waistband of your tux?” Felicity asked. Oliver only blinked at her. “Oh,” she said, diverting her gaze. “Right.”

It was kind of idiotic of her to think otherwise — of _course_ he would be armed, even with their entire team surrounding them — but the reality of the situation hit her in the gut with the force of a punch. Their wedding was supposed to be the happiest day of her life — of their life _together._ How had they gotten here? And how could they ever go back?

Felicity felt a telltale burn in the corner of her eyes and took the blade quickly, turning away to tuck it in the garter that was buried beneath the thirty layers of her dress — as if she would even be able to find it if Carrie tried anything. She tried not to notice how Oliver’s hand stayed hovering at her shoulder, as if desperate to reach out and comfort her.

“Okay,” she said finally, straightening up, and his hand fell away. “Let’s do this.”

The first time Oliver and Felicity get married, their empty words echo throughout an even emptier room. Their vows are deadened and dry, each syllable a struggle to grit out between Felicity’s teeth. Defiance is spilling through her veins with an acidic burn, clashing with the desperation that chokes the air out of her lungs from the way Oliver stares at her with all the steadiness in the world. And it hurts not because she thinks it’s different than the way he would look at her on their wedding day, but because it’s everything she ever expected.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the minister says, her voice wary enough to indicate she knows there’s a greater force at work here, and Felicity watches as Oliver’s demeanor shifts from steady to hesitant. He takes one, two halting steps forward, closing the distance between them. His hands come up like magnets to cup her face, and after weeks of being so far away, he’s so close that she can’t see anything else.

They stand there like that for a moment, noses brushing together, breathing the same air for the first time in what feels like forever. Felicity’s eyes flutter closed, unbidden warmth flooding her body.

“Oliver,” she whispers, more air against his lips than it is sound against his ears. He takes it for the permission it is, pressing his lips to hers. For a moment, she leans into it, wrapping her hands around his wrists and pulling him closer. For a moment, she allows herself to revel in the familiarity of his body pressed against hers. For a moment, she can almost believe it’s real.

When they finally pull apart, Felicity can taste tears against her lips.

* * *

The second time Oliver and Felicity get married, nothing looks the way it’s supposed to.

She’s dressed in black jeans that are ripped along her thigh and the back of one of her knees, long, angry scrapes revealed by gashes in the fabric. Her hair is haphazardly thrown up into a ponytail that hasn’t been tended to in hours, thick strands falling around her dirt-smudged face and tickling her collarbones. Her glasses are sitting crooked across the bridge of her nose. If she took her jacket off, a large, square patch of gauze would be visible, spanning the entire curve of her shoulder and soaked through at the very center with a speck of blood.

Oliver is arguably worse for the wear, standing on the side of her good arm with a spectacular bruise blooming along his jawline and a nasty cut at his temple that “looks worse than it feels, I promise.” The arm that isn’t wound around her waist is cradled tightly to his abdomen, making him wince every time it’s jostled. Felicity’s pretty positive there’s a chance that he set his own dislocated shoulder back in the van just so Dig wouldn’t insist on taking him to the hospital first. Dig tried anyway — multiple times — but his demands were met with equally insistent protests.

Because their wedding — _this_ wedding? It won’t come second to anything.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Felicity asks, if only for posterity. The judge is staring at them cautiously, seeming as though he desperately wishes Felicity were asking _him_ that question instead of her soon-to-be husband. The poor guy looks torn between marrying them and calling the police on them and, quite frankly, Felicity doesn’t blame him. But she also doesn’t care.

Oliver seems to agree, because his only response is to tug her closer into his side and kiss her — which, yeah, okay. Good answer.

“Oliver,” she admonishes, pulling away with twinkling eyes. “ _Tradition_ , remember?”

The second time Oliver and Felicity get married, Malcolm Merlyn is dead. It took weeks to hunt him down, weeks to battle through all the grief and loss and anger he had put them through. But they did it — not without a lot of help and _trust_ and strategy — and now they are here. Maybe things aren’t back to the way they were before, but Felicity doubts they ever will be. She doesn’t _want_ them to be — not after everything they have lost along the way. The only thing left to do is move forward; she plans on having Oliver by her side when she does.

It only took about ten seconds after they all clamored back into the van, restless and spiraling down from their adrenaline rushes, for him to fish the ring out of his pocket.

“Classy,” Thea commented from the passenger seat, mask pulled down from her face and bow lying in her lap. For someone who had just played a hand in her father’s death, she was taking it surprisingly well. Oliver had taken her aside in the immediate aftermath, ushering her away from the rest of the group and around the corner of a building. Felicity doesn’t know what it was he said, but there was an ease to Thea’s posture that Felicity normally only associated with Roy’s presence.

In the van, though, Oliver only spared his sister the tiniest of glances.

“Felicity, please,” he said, turning his attention back to her, the sincerity in his eyes more than a little overwhelming. “I don’t want to — please, just —” He swallowed once, trying to find the words before coming up with, “I don’t ever want to lose you again. So if…if you want it, then it’s yours. It’s always been yours.”

Felicity looked at the ring for a long, hard moment. “Oliver, I…” she started, and then slowly shook her head. “No.”

“No?” Oliver asked, all the hope in his eyes crumbling — and, okay, she could have thought that one through a little more.

Both Thea and Dig whipped around in their seats.

“ _No?”_

“What do you mean, _no?”_

“Dig, the road?” Felicity said, snapping out of the moment to gesture for Dig to _turn around, for Chrissakes_. Then she turned back to Oliver. “And no — no, not _no_. I mean, no, I’m not _saying_ no _._ ”

“It sure doesn’t sound like a yes,” Thea commented.

“I just —” Felicity said, looking down at the ring and then up into Oliver’s gaze. The look in his eyes was weirdly reminiscent of the night he took her to his family’s mansion to bait Slade — like there was so much more hidden there, if only she would take the time to look _._ It thrilled her and terrified her; there was nothing she wanted more in her entire life than to spend the rest of it with him.

“I don’t want to be your fiancée,” she told him. “I want to be your wife.”

The second time Oliver and Felicity get married, they’re ready.

Well — they’re almost ready.

About five minutes into the proceedings, with John standing as their witness with a little bit of fond exasperation painted across his face, Thea bursts into the room. She’s still sporting a split lip and a slight limp, and Felicity could swear she sees the judge reach for the phone on his desk, his fingers twitching for the button that would summon security.

“The rings,” Thea gasps out, holding out a blue silk bag with her dirtied fingers. “You idiots forgot the rings.”

They don’t need them — Felicity will never need anything else save for Oliver’s hand in hers — but they take them anyway. In a world where so much is uncertain, the simple bands feel something like a promise. It’s one Felicity has every intention of keeping.

The second time Oliver and Felicity get married, his vows are written in his eyes, and hers are hidden in the arc of her smile, both of them wrapped so entirely up in the other that there is no doubt of now and tomorrow and forever. Her cheeks are dry and her gaze is clear where she stands in front of Oliver, looking up at him with nothing but pure happiness reflected in her expression as she sets her heart in his hands for the last time.

Afterwards, he kisses her on the steps of the courthouse, dipping her low with a hand wrapped tightly around her waist and the other sliding up to cradle her face. The cold metal of her wedding ring presses against his pulse point, solid and steady and sure. Felicity knows well enough by now that tomorrow is never guaranteed, but she wants to spend as long as she can building a future with Oliver out of as many todays as they have left.

The second time Oliver and Felicity get married, nothing looks the way it’s supposed to — there aren’t white dresses or first dances or rose petals that guide their way. Instead, there are cuts and bruises and hearts that might still be a little more broken than they are healed. Instead, they’re not stuck in their past, not caught in any sort of in-between — they’re here and real and _together._ This time, Felicity is certain that’s how it was meant to be all along.


End file.
